


White Against Silver

by aban_asaara



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Romance, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-08
Updated: 2017-08-08
Packaged: 2018-12-12 23:28:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11747385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aban_asaara/pseuds/aban_asaara
Summary: She throws her head back and sticks her tongue out to catch a snowflake drifting down to her. “Try it,” she says when she catches Fenris eyeing her—and he does, and if someone had told her then that the escaped slave she met nearly ten years ago would one day be catching snowflakes on his tongue outside their home, she would have laughed them out of the Free Marches.





	White Against Silver

**Author's Note:**

> Month of Fanfiction - Day 1 - Shameless Fluff.
> 
> Recommended listening: [Aurora's Theme](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Byz6960tWxQ) by Cœur de Pirate.
> 
>   
>  Many, many thanks to [Nelsynoo](http://nelsynoo.tumblr.com) for this lovely watercolour illustration. ♥

“Hawke, come see this.”

Stifling a yawn, Hawke looks up from her mug of too-strong tea to see Fenris by the window, holding the drapes open with one hand. She rubs the sleep out of her eyes as she makes her way to him, then peeps outside from above his shoulder.

She groans. Past the frost filigreed on the glass panes, she sees nothing but white, piled up high enough to reach the tines of their small garden fence. The branches of pines and sugar maples around the yard droop under the weight; far off in the distance, the Frostbacks are lost in a pearlescent haze.

Fenris thrusts his feet into his boots, wraps his cloak about his shoulders and shoves the door open through the snow blanketing the ground. Then he’s off, Ambrosius on his heels.

Sandor hauls his massive head off the carpet and lets out an inquisitive  _arf?_  as the door swings closed behind Fenris, sweeping clumps of snow inside that Hawke chooses to ignore for the time being. She sits cross-legged on the floor, blowing the steam that rises from her mug into swirling wisps. “Children, I swear,” she says, scratching the old hound behind the ears as he settles back again in front of the flames crackling in the hearth. “You’d think they’ve never seen snow before— _oh_.”

The air is crisp, the fresh-fallen snow pristine, and Hawke has to squint against all that brightness as she wades along the trail left by Fenris. Snowflakes float down in clumps, soft as willow catkins. It clings to her trousers, rising and falling in soft plumes as she kicks it up, crunching under her boots but sucking up all other sound.

“I never imagined it’d be like this,” Fenris breathes when he spots her, the words misting the air before him. The mabari pup bobs through the snow to fetch the stick he flung across the yard. “I always figured people were exaggerating.”

Snow is sticking to his hair too, white against silver. She points a snowflake out to him—one fully-formed, feathery flower that has come to rest upon the hunter-green wool of his cloak—and presses a kiss on the taper of his ear when he tilts his head down to look at it. “Give it a fortnight,” she replies, “and you’ll wish they were.”

Fenris throws the stick again, but Ambrosius decides to dig at the frosted ground instead, his little stub of a tail wagging skyward. Hawke recalls more innocent times: snowmen and snow angels in Lothering, snowball fights with the twins. She throws her head back and sticks her tongue out to catch a snowflake drifting down to her. “Try it,” she says when she catches Fenris eyeing her—and he  _does_ , and if someone had told her then that the escaped slave she met nearly ten years ago would one day be catching snowflakes on his tongue outside their home, she would have laughed them out of the Free Marches.

“Hawke, are you—” The snowball hits the back of his head with a splat, tearing a delightful yelp out of him. “You  _minx_ ,” he grumbles, shaking the snow off his hair before scooping up a handful.

She’s laughing too hard to do anything but block the snowball with her shoulder, chin tucked against her chest. He’s much faster than she is: he has another one aimed at her while she’s still packing snow between her hands, and she ducks just in time for it to whoosh past her head. Her next projectile bursts against the trunk of a nearby tree when Fenris phases out of the way in a bolt of white-blue light, then reappears behind her to press his ice-cold fingers to her neck.

She squeals and scurries away from him. “Oh, so that’s how you want to play it?” she laughs, aiming a spell high above him to shake the clumps of snow off the pine branches and down onto his head. With a gasp, he brushes it off himself, then starts towards her with a lopsided grin that unfurls a curl of heat in the pit of her belly. She scrambles away, laughing too hard for her magic to do much but blow a white mist around them. Ambrosius barks and bounds in the flurry, tongue lolling and tail wagging.

The plumes of powder snow glimmer lyrium blue in his wake when he phases out again. Half a heartbeat later he has her against himself, with her back to his chest and a handful of snow down her collar. His laugh rumbles against her while she squeals in protest, trying to wriggle out of his arms.

She feels herself tumble. For a split second the world is a whirl of trees etched black against pure white—and then she plops down to the bottom of a mound of snow. All is quiet for a moment, Fenris’s laughter coming to her in a distant muffle.

He pulls her up. “Sorry, Hawke,” he says, dusting the snow off her head and cheeks while she blinks it off her lashes. “Are you alright?” He doesn’t _look_  very sorry, though, what with the laughter still crinkling the corner of his eyes, but he’s breathless and flushed, melted snow sticking strands of hair to his temples, and she can’t hold it against him.

She drops the snowball she meant to stick into his handsome face; instead she curls her fingers around the clasp of his cloak to tilt his mouth against hers. His nose is cold, but his lips are warm, and taste of the spiced apple preserves he had this morning.

“Let’s get back inside,” Fenris says between their mouths.

Hawke shakes the snow off her cloak as she strides back after him towards their little thatched house. “Don’t trust Sandor to watch over the baby while she sleeps?”

He laughs under his breath, Ambrosius padding along behind him. “I know she’s as safe as can be, but he’s still just a  _dog_.”

She grins. “You make a very bad Fereldan, Fenris.”


End file.
